If politicians went online

While Indian political parties did experiment with the digital medium in the 15^th Lok Sabha elections, it would be interesting if the momentum was continued to establish a conversation with the people.

Websites like http://india.gov.in , http://goidirectory.nic.in/ and http://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ provide some static information, however, web 2.0 offers many more opportunities for politicians and leaders to leverage.

Spread awareness:

Leaders can use Blogs / websites and microsites to communicate their missions/opinions and spread the sentiment to citizens. A lot of times the Government makes efforts which are not communicated to people at large (I, for example, did not know of all the helplines available to women for eve-teasing). Channels like you tube, social networking sites and blogs can be used to spread awareness among the youth of today about all the efforts being made.

Establish conversations to get feedback:

Needless to say, web 2.0 will prove to garner tremendous feedback from people. If all the responses are judiciously managed (clubbed under different heads and forwarded to the concerned people in the Govt, who will take the necessary action), not only will it establish a conversation with people, but will be an excellent tool for PR of the politician / political party. We all know, conversations and positive feedback on the internet can work wonders for a brand, and I see no reason why it won’t work in this case.

Garner participation:

When I’m online reading, for example, a politicians’ initiative on safety for women, and I come across comments from 5 women who have benefited from it, it will instantly make me appreciate the efforts and ensure I vote for this candidate the next time. If there is a mechanism provided online, where I can get information & register for volunteering, I would love to participate. If I can forward the initiative to a friend, I would instantly forward it to all my friends and get more participation for the effort.

Besides spreading awareness, establishing conversations and garnering participation, a lot more can be done online. Websites to encourage small scale trade, with a platform for people to interact (for example, if I want to establish a small scale industry, I could simply log on to the relevant site and download the list of vendors with their contact information).

I am sure there are 100s of ways in which the digital medium can be leveraged… But I’ll stop at just this for now.

Democracy going digital in India

The 15th Lok Sabha elections had almost 40% voters under the age cap of 35 yrs. With the rising use of internet and mobile phones across India, a majority of the voters this time were hooked on to these digital media to not only gather information on the constituencies & candidates, but also to express their opinions and hold a dialogue with fellow voters and political parties. I read somewhere that about 4 million unique users searched the net for information on politics, politicians and elections in April.

Digital tools like bulk-calling, tele-surveys, videos on youtube, websites focussed on elections and the likes were initiated by political parties, whereas, online portals with information and discussion forums, online forms to help you register for voting came into existence to get to the young Indian voter.

A few interactive tools used by political parties were:

The SuperCaller: A digital tool used to make multiple phone calls a day to inform voters was used by Congress (Jyotiraditya Scindia in Guna in Madhya Pradesh) and BJD candidates in Orissa.

The ElectionTracker: A web-based service that crawls the net, aggregates information on parties and politicians, and provides a meaningful analysis of the data.

Videos of BJP and Congress were also floated on youtube

Some of the interactive programs which came into existence were:

Tata Tea’s Jaago Re campaign which not only educated & encouraged people to vote, but also provided a platform for people to register to vote, get updates on their voter registration status and get voting & election related news from their respective areas.

Lifeblob.com, (a website that runs a social timeline service – a form of digital diary that maps the social media that subscribers share on to a timeline), created timelines for L.K.Advani & Narendra Modi.

Google India Election Centre, where non-government agencies collaborated with Google to upload data that would help voters find their constituencies online by keying in their address and access information about the current MP and candidates.

Well, that’s the start of democracy going the digital way in India :)